porter. Grossman walked past all the detectives to the door of the local room, carrying a bulky parcel, and asked for our reporter; said there was three dol- lars and sixty-fi ve cents due on the parcel. The receptionist, instantly rec- ognizing Grossman as a gangster (and his burden as a bomb), quavered that the reporter wasn't due in until three- thirty that afternoon. Then, as soon as Grossman left, all the detectives were warned that he was the man, and that he was coming back at three-thirty, with a bomb. At three-thirty the office was occupied solely by detectives, one nervous assistant editor, and our reporter, who had innocently wan- dered in. Then, as he told us, "everything seemed to happen at onceI''' Grossman whip- ped out of the elevator and past the reception- ist, clutching the parcel. A dozen or so detec- tives jumped him, one of them seizing the par- cel and throwing it out the window (for fear it might explode), and the others hustling the astonished Grossman off down the freight elevator (for fear that he might explode, pre- sumabl y ). Downstairs, things were straighten- ed out, after a fashion: Grossman iden tified himself, and the parcel was found to contain nothing but wadded-up newspapers. "The rea- son I think this Gross- man was your Gross- man," our informant concluded, "is that through the whole thing he never acted mad, or even surprised. He was just a little hurt." THE NEW YORKER Flagpole .N insistent attor- ney, a Mr. Bacon, has written us a couple of times to demand that we do something about the fact that for the past three years one 1 5 of the flagpoles in front of the Public Library has been missing.. We ought to be able to get something done, he says (probably having in mind our occasion- al small successes in bullying m unicipali- ties and corporations), and even if we can't get something done, we ought to explain it. We went around and put it up to Mr. Fedler, superintendent of the Library. He disclosed a small municipal complication which is probably respon- sible for the whole mess. Seems that the plaza in front of the Library is under the jurisdiction of the Parks Department. The flags and halyards belong to the Library, the poles to Commissioner Moses. Three years ago, when the pole began to rot, and threat- ened to fall on the passersby, the Parks people simply cut it down, leaving the Library no place to hang its flag. Lately, though, the Fifth A venue Association has been taking an interest in the matter, and the pole is soon to be rc- t: . . .:.:":-::;.:".. ,' , , ,A << v t ,,': ,"..@" . "''- " =::- ....:.::- .............. ." ..: * ' ::.:. :i t ' , ',.{, ",. ":::,," , ':' j .' ,,'" ,:k ... '..: .. >:: : \, , ,: , ,",-, ((Do you all give up?"